Nebulae is a New Orleans-based music maker who creates neo-retro alt-rock synthpop and EDM. He has created more than 270 songs, spanning 14 albums and more than 25 remixes, collaborating with artists all over the world.
Nebulae’s music is heavily influenced by bands like New Order, the Smiths, Alphaville, the Cure, U2, Erasure, Yazoo, Orbital, and other synth and alt rock bands from the 80s and 90s. Modern day EDM and trance (like Above and Beyond, Seven Lions, ODESZA, M83) and guitar-driven bands (like Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Ros, and Shiny Toy Guns) continue to influence Nebulae as his productions evolve.
In 2020, Nebulae released three best-of albums, titled Hindsight, spanning his best productions from the past two decades. Quite uncharacteristically, the second decade Hindsight albums are compilations by genre: Electronic and Alternative.
Nebulae teaches music production as an Ableton Certified Trainer and as an Adjunct Instructor of digital music production using Ableton Live at the University of New Orleans.
The Nebulae project originally started as a collaboration between Abid Hussain and Kurt Eto at the University of California at Berkeley in 1992. Their goal was to create totally nebulous unmarketable music, blending multiple genres. Clearly, Nebulae succeeded, as evidenced by the fact that no one knew who they were. Regardless, Nebulae was one of the first artists to post music online in the early days of the Internet, dating back as early as 1995. Much to the band’s amusement, there was a time when the search engine Yahoo, in its infancy, ranked Nebulae higher than U2 in certain parts of Western Europe. In 2002, after finishing their sixth album, Kurt and Abid parted on good terms, and Abid carried on with the Nebulae moniker.
Under the moniker of Nebulae as a solo artist, Abid began to produce and perform electronic music using Ableton Live. Nebulae released several albums and a long list of collaborations with and remixes of other artists over the Internet. He also became influential in the growing Ableton community.
From 2003 to 2008, Nebulae continued to produce remixes and perform live shows, including heavy involvement with Laptop Deathmatch scene in Dallas, Texas. Nebulae also collaborated in two additional projects: Chlorophyll (with singer Cat Hall of Dissonance) and Kundalini Shock Attack (with an old friend from UC Berkeley), both of which carried on in future projects after Nebulae’s involvement. In 2009, “Chaos” from Nebulae’s Wallpaper album was used in an episode of the television show, Crash. In 2010, Nebulae performed at Dubspot’s Warper Party at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
In 2011, Nebulae became one of fewer than 200 people in the world to become an Ableton Certified Trainer. Since then, Nebulae has taught many students how to produce and perform electronic music using Ableton Live.
In 2020, Nebulae became an Adjunct Instructor at the University of New Orleans, teaching digital music and production using Ableton Live. In addition, Nebulae has taken leadership roles in the Dallas Ableton User Group and founded and runs the New Orleans Ableton User Group on Facebook.
Abid Hussain is also an attorney at his law firm, Hussain Law LLC. His law practice focuses on commercial transactions and litigation, corporate law, trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property law, and nonprofit law. In 2018, Abid’s law and music worlds collided in his presentation on the tension between copyrights and sampling in modern music production at Ableton’s Loop conference in Hollywood, California.
